The Green Thing

[Dr.Syn]

This is obviously American but the sentiment applies. Found it on Facebook

Anyone over the age of 35 should read this, as i copied this from a friend ..

Checking out at the grocery store recently, the young cashier suggested I should bring my own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment. I apologized and explained, "We didn't have this green thing back in my earlier days." The clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations."
She was right about one thing -- our generation didn't have the green thing in “Our” day. So what did we have back then…? After some reflection and soul-searching on "Our" day here's what I remembered we did have....

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles repeatedly. So they really were recycled. But we didn't have the green thing back in our day. We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts -- wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days.

Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that young lady is right. We didn't have the green thing back in our day. Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she's right. We didn't have the green thing back then. We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water.

We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn't have the green thing back then. Back then, people took the bus, and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.

But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then?

Makes you think?

[MuddyWitch]

I turned 50 in October and have been taking my own carrier bags (of the cloth or leather variety) to the supermarkets, or more likely to my local market all of my adult life. Most of my friends (ages ranging between 78 and 16!) do so too.

My daughters well remember the 'No, I DON'T have to have one of your store bags' battle the myself & a couple of friends had in M & S back in 1998. We won, but were escorted to the door with our purchases, incase we stole something! Apparently having the bought item in their bag (unsealed) magically prevented this!

I was lecturing in environmental sciences from the mid-80's, including on the nature of the toxins included in carrier bags and the detrimental effects they had on the environment. One of my favourite talks to the 5-11 year old age group was ' How to Save the Planet with a Tea Spoon & a Carrier Bag' (The tea spoon was for opening envelopes carefully to be reused.) I find it very hard to believe that, here in the UK, the kind of generalisation in the article is true.

The sort of person who, like me & my kids, (now adults), was brought up looking forward to the bagful of 'hand-me-downs', the thrill of baking from scratch and the joy of playing games instead of putting our (one & only) telly on, was taught to rinse the milk bottle & put it on the step & to walk or bus to school, is unlikely to have missed the 'use your own bag' message. If the choose to ignore it, THAT'S a diferent matter!

Maybe I've just spent most of my life amongst like-minded people. I joined Greenpeace before there was a UK address, and I've been a Friends of the Earth member since my teens. (I also worked for Greenpeace UK in the 1990s.) But surely that means I met quite a number of 'the public'? I staffed stalls most weekends from the mid-70s to the mid noughties, so I've talked to people from all walks of life from the 'I REALLY agree with your aims' type to the 'You lot make me sick' types.

But to not know about the 'great carrier bag debate'? Poor USA....

MW